Republican Party Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

Trivia quiz questions with answers about the Republican Party

Republican Party Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

What is the Republican Party?
A: The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP (Grand Old Party), is one of the two major political parties in the United States, the other being its historic rival, the Democratic Party.

Founded in 1854, the GOP originally subscribed to classical liberalism and took ideological stands that were what?
A: Anti-slavery and pro-economic reform.

Who was the first Republican president in the history of the United States?
A: Abraham Lincoln.

The party was usually dominant over the Democrats during what?
A: During the Third Party System and Fourth Party System.

In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt formed the Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party after being rejected by the GOP and ran as what?
A: A third-party presidential candidate.

Roosevelt called for many social reforms, some of which were later championed by whom?
A: New Deal Democrats in the 1930s.

He lost the 1912 election, and when most of his supporters returned to the GOP, they were at odds with the party's new conservative economic stance; many left for what?
A: The Democratic Party, and an ideological shift to the right occurred in the Republican Party.

Later in the 20th century, the liberal Republican element was overwhelmed by a conservative surge begun by whom in 1964 and continued during the Reagan Era?
A: Barry Goldwater.

After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the party's core base shifted, with the Southern states becoming more reliably what in presidential politics?
A: Republican and the Northeastern states becoming more reliably Democratic.

After the 1960s, whites increasingly identified with which party?
A: The Republican Party.

After the Roe v. Wade 1973 Supreme Court ruling, the Republican Party made opposition to abortion what?
A: A key plank of its national party platform and grew its support among Evangelicals.

By 2000, the Republican party was firmly aligned with what?
A: Christian conservatism.

The party's core support since the 1990s comes chiefly from where?
A: The South, the Great Plains, the Mountain States and rural areas in the North.

Founded in the Northern states in 1854 by abolitionists, modernizers, ex-Whigs and ex-Free Soilers, the Republican Party quickly became the principal opposition to the what?
A: The dominant Democratic Party and the briefly popular Know Nothing Party.

The main cause was opposition to the what?
A: The Kansas–Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise by which slavery was kept out of Kansas.

The Northern Republicans saw the expansion of slavery as what?
A: As a great evil.

The first public meeting of the general anti-Nebraska movement, at which the name Republican was suggested for a new anti-slavery party, was held when?
A: On March 20, 1854 in a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin.

The first official party convention was held when?
A: On July 6, 1854 in Jackson, Michigan.

By 1858, the Republicans dominated what?
A: Nearly all Northern states.

The Republican Party first came to power in the elections of 1860 when it won control of what?
A: Both houses of Congress and its candidate, Abraham Lincoln, was elected President.

Early Republican ideology was reflected in what 1856 slogan?
A: Free labor, free land, free men", which had been coined by Salmon P. Chase, a Senator from Ohio (and future Secretary of the Treasury and Chief Justice of the United States).

"Free labor" referred to what?
A: The Republican opposition to slave labor and belief in independent artisans and businessmen.

"Free land" referred to what?
A: Republican opposition to the plantation system whereby slave owners could buy up all the good farmland, leaving the yeoman independent farmers the leftovers.

Representing the fast-growing Western states, when did Lincoln win the Republican nomination?
A: In 1860 and subsequently won the presidency.

The party took on the mission of what?
A: Preserving the Union and destroying slavery during the American Civil War and over Reconstruction.

In the election of 1864, it united with War Democrats to do what?
A: To nominate Lincoln on the National Union Party ticket.

The Republican Party was at the center of whose impeachment in 1868?
A: Andrew Johnson's.

The Republicans had strong support from pietistic Protestants, but they resisted demands for what?
A: Prohibition.

As the Northern postwar economy boomed with heavy and light industry, railroads, mines, fast-growing cities, and prosperous agriculture, the Republicans took credit and promoted policies to do what?
A: Sustain the fast growth.

By 1890 the Republicans had agreed to the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Interstate Commerce Commission in response to complaints from whom?
A: Owners of small businesses and farmers.

The high McKinley Tariff of 1890 hurt the party and the Democrats did what?
A: Swept to a landslide in the off-year elections, even defeating McKinley himself.

The Democrats elected whom?
A: Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892.

The election of William McKinley in 1896 was marked by a resurgence of what?
A: Republican dominance that lasted (except for 1912 and 1916) until 1932.

What did McKinley promise?
A: That high tariffs would end the severe hardship caused by the Panic of 1893 and that Republicans would guarantee a sort of pluralism in which all groups would benefit.

They created the foundations of the modern welfare state through what?
A: An extensive program of pensions for Union veterans.

The 1896 realignment cemented the Republicans as the party of what?
A: Big business while Theodore Roosevelt added more small business support by his embrace of trust busting.

He handpicked his successor William Howard Taft in 1908, but they became what?
A: They became enemies as the party split down the middle.

Taft defeated Roosevelt for the 1912 nomination and Roosevelt ran on what ticket?
A: His new Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party.

The Teapot Dome scandal threatened to hurt the party but what happened?
A: Harding died and Coolidge blamed everything on him as the opposition splintered in 1924.

The pro-business policies of the decade seemed to produce an unprecedented prosperity until what?
A: The Wall Street Crash of 1929 heralded the Great Depression.

The New Deal coalition of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt controlled American politics for how long?
A: Most of the next three decades, excepting the two-term presidency of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower.

In the 1934 midterm elections, how many Republican senators went down to defeat?
A: 10, leaving them with only 25 against 71 Democrats.

The House of Representatives likewise had what?
A: Overwhelming Democratic majorities.

Republicans made a major comeback in the 1938 elections and had new rising stars such as whom?
A: Robert A. Taft of Ohio on the right and Thomas E. Dewey of New York on the left.

Southern conservatives joined with most Republicans to form the conservative coalition, which dominated domestic issues in Congress until when?
A: 1964.